1. Field of the Invention
The current invention relates to sales and marketing. More particularly, the invention concerns internet trading, sales and purchasing. In a further and more specific aspect, the invention concerns sales of general merchandise products, goods and services by posting such on sale on the internet in a new method.
2. The Prior Art
The prior are has provided numerous methods of internet trading, some subject to numerous patents. As the World Wide Web significantly advances, people all over the world spend billions of dollars annually to purchase goods and services via the internet by all means offered. As such, numerous methods have been developed, offering variety of auction-type trading, most under numerous U.S. Patents. The most common, and the most used method is known as “Internet Auction”.
More specifically, as “auction” became critical in this field, it is appropriate to realize the publically accepted definition of the term “auction” by two major dictionaries:                Wikipedia: “An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the winning bidder.”        Webster: “The selling of goods where people offer bids, and the item is sold to the person who makes the highest offer”        
In the classical and practical definition of the internet auction system, a vendor posts an item or a service at a specific price, for a specific period of time, hopping to sale it for a much higher price to the highest bidder, in a process whereby expected multi bidders and potential buyers submit their bids at a higher rate from the recent, so that at the end of the duration of the auction, the highest bidder wins the auction. As such, most, if not all, of the methods developed in this regards, including those under patents right related to variety of auctions, (by such definitions), some of which are commercial transactions, some for hotels, air fair, to name some.
The following are the most used internet auctions: Best Offer, Private Auction, Multiple Item Auction, Buy It Now, Reverse Auction. In general, all these types of internet trading can be considered conventional auctions, as the definitions show, and as it has been done practically.
That means goods and services are posted in the internet for sale at a specific price, with the intention to end up selling it for the highest bidder at a much higher price, whereby the highest bidder wins the bid only at the end of the auction.
Some of the major areas of internet trading in the mean of auctions are the general merchandise, services, federal GSA auctions, antique auctions, collectible auctions, auto auction, surplus, liquidation and specific purpose auctions.
The following are examples of some known, common trading companies, who provide internet auctions for goods and services:    Bidz.com, Ebay.com, eBid.Net, gsaauctions.gov, ww.auction.com www.auction.com, www.GovernmentAuctions.org, www.inetbid.com, www.internetauctionlist.com, www.shoper.com, www.squeagle.com, www.ubid.com, www.ushomeauction.com and www.webidz.com (an Ebay alternative auction site),
However, these are all auctions, by the definitions of “auction’, and by practice. Although numerous patents have been issued for the general area of ‘auctions’, disadvantage of the current auction methods keep increasing.
One drawback of the above types of auctions is the decrease in the ideal means of ‘auction’, leading to many to become merely stores for goods and services, such as Amazon.com™ for books. In that respect, even Ebay.com™ is partially such as store by using “But It Now”. It is a fact that less and less auctions ending without buyers, or with products sold for the initial starting price. This tendency continues to affect the current internet trading via those methods of auctions.
In fact, even if a good or service has been sold, no statistics can prove the percentage of items or services sold at a higher price than the initially posted price; and, if higher, by which amount. Thus, it appears that the ideal method and intention of ‘auction’ on its many varieties is becoming somehow close to obsolete, or, at least, losing its significance, with continuing reduction.
Further drawback of the current auction types is that the World Wide Web system has become sophisticated to the extend, also based on numerous patents, that a shopper can find the lowest price of a product or service quickly, thus buying the same directly from web sellers. In addition, the obtained information enables the prospective shopper to submit a bid according to his or her research, or avoiding an auction because the posted price is higher than the price obtained through the search.
Yet it is another drawback of the current auctions because of the duration of the auctions. The average period for each auction is seven (7) days, while two more periods are normally used: Three (3) days (least used), and Ten (10) days, which is even ‘worse’. In the current dynamic market, shoppers are too eager to complete a purchase almost instantly. Thus, waiting between seven to ten days to the end of an auction seems to many as taken forever.
A further drawback of the current auction methods is the time consuming a bidder needs to spend in addition to the first submission of a bid. A bidder must follow the auction for many days, whereby the need to submit more offers, always in higher amounts, is necessary when the bidder is outbid. What seemed to be an exciting process of repeated bids, competing with others, has become, in today's dynamic market, a frustrating process, less exciting, and much discouraging.
To make it even worse, if the auctioneer submits a notice to each outbid bidder, a growing practice, then the bidder has to deal with yet another ‘junk mail’ type of emails.
Thus, a good idea has become a nightmare to many, because of today's high volume of email many receive.
Despite the fact that still many people use the internet auction to sell goods and services, many are discouraged because the relatively low price bidders offer, in general, resulting in many auctions ending with less revenue.
In addition, it is obvious that in today's dynamic markets, and buyers being eager to receive the goods or services as soon as possible, instant winning has become a world-wide desire of many buyers, which the current auction methods does not offer.
It is yet another and further drawback of the current auction methods by losing the attraction and excitement of auction. It is known that public auction whereby people gather and submit bids instantly, publically, in fraction of a second, are very attractive and exciting, such as luxury vehicles, auto auctions and used or new general merchandise. By all means, internet auction attraction and excitement have either gone, or are being significantly reduced.
Thus, it is fair to state that, due to the reduction in the ideal meaning, definition and purpose of ‘auction’, ‘internet auction’ has become merely a method of selling a product, mostly for the starting price, or for a price much lower than the expected price.
Referring now to another method of internet auction, it is known as ‘low price internet shopping’. In this method, the prospective buyers search multi web sites for the lowest price for the product or service. For example, www.pricewatch.com, which supposedly suggests multiple items or services of the same nature for the lowest price on the internet. See also www.shopper.com. This method is acceptable, but is different than the “regular” auctions. It is merely search for a low price, mostly for services.
To extend this subject, it should be mentioned that another method of internet trading has been in use know as “buyer's price”. In this method, mostly used by companies, buyers counter a suggested price by offering a lower price, which may be negotiate and re-countered by the offerror until the “negotiation” ends with or without a sale. For example, to get a hotel room via www.priceline.com, the customer may counter a set price and receive a notice of a better price, then accept the offer and purchase the room at the hotel. This method has specific and limited usage, and may be extremely frustrating and time consuming.
A further variation of the auction process provides a two-phase process of ‘reverse auction’, initiated in the country of Holland for selling flowers. In reverse auction process, the first phase is with the determination of the most favorable price available for the same item or service using search engines for multi vendors. In the second phase, the process negotiates a price which is lower than the most favorable lower price at the same time, by soliciting bids from the vendors. While the idea is good, this is a long lasting process, whereby the prospective buyer may “get lost”, and misses its concentration and get even more confused in the extremely dynamic internet shopping world. In fact, other than patent registration, it may have not been practical at all.
In addition, the current ‘reverse auction’ provides a method of submission of a plurality of bids, proposals, whereby a computer network enabling communication between a host computer and a plurality of remote bidders. As such, this becomes a unique auction for plurality of potential buyers under certain rules and data provided and specific terms and conditions, thus much differs from the invention presented herein.
Above all, in a way of example only, practically, the term “auction” had lost its main purpose—also by definition—to achieve a higher price for a posted product or service. In lack of scientific study, it is difficult to accept or deny such argument, but the reality is that, mostly, ‘internet auctions’ means boring ‘internet stores’.
It should be noted again that using most current methods of auctions are almost the same of having web shops for internet trading. Thus, these auctions sales are distinguished from ‘regular web sales’, or ‘web stores’ by calling them ‘suctions’.
Therefore, being distinguished from ‘auctions’, and in many aspect being superior, and based on the foregoing, the invention presented here is the answer to all disadvantages, most which have been specified here.
Thus, despite the current volume of internet auctions, resulting from people's need to earn money, only auctions of unique items, such as luxury vehicles, motor vehicle and or collectible items, can be consider ‘real auctions’. All other auction methods described here, have lost the practical meaning, are more boring and ending with less expected revenues.
Therefore, the invention presented here is revolutionary, exciting and serves as a perfect alternative method and solution to the current internet trading industry.